From the 1st of July, two of Australia’s most important law enforcement and criminal information agencies – CrimTrac and the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) - will merge to become the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. The website will become www.acic.gov.au.
This merger is vital, as our law enforcement and protection agencies need accurate information and intelligence to respond to immediate threats. In this security landscape we must provide ample and instant information that identifies the patterns and associations that can help detect and disrupt significant threats.
Justice Minister Michael Keenan said in a statement: “We don’t want to be in a situation where we fail in our duty to protect our nation because terrorists could share information quicker than we could”
The more we can strengthen this capacity, the quicker our partners will be able to prevent, detect and disrupt significant threats.
The ACIC will provide law enforcement agencies with accurate information and intelligence to respond to emerging criminal and national security threats.
The ACIC will leverage the strengths of each agency to improve the collective response to crime.
The purpose of the merger is to ensure that Australia is using its national law enforcement information and intelligence capabilities as effectively as possible to support police to protect the community.
The merger of the Australian Crime Commission and CrimTrac is focussed on using our existing capabilities as effectively as possible to improve our capacity to support police and the justice sector. In addition, it would deliver benefits for law enforcement and national security, including streamlined access to information and intelligence and shared strategic insight and situational awareness.
Combining the existing resources, capabilities and expertise of these agencies provides a significant opportunity to overcome risks to the national policing environment presented by the current limited connectivity between these key national intelligence and information agencies.
The changing nature of criminal and national security threats poses an ever-increasing challenge for both law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Criminal threats are becoming more complex and pervasive than ever before across the spectrum of serious and organised crime. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have a growing requirement for accurate and up-to-date information to inform decision-making processes in their everyday work.
As part of the merger all existing CrimTrac accredited agencies and brokers - including both government and commercial entities - will now be accredited by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission starting from the 1st July 2016. As such Intercheck Australia will also be accredited under ACIC, however the change will not affect how InterCheck Australia conducts Criminal History checking activities and hence all processing will continue as normal.
